more like benny hill

quand est-ce qu'on retape Charleroi en mode Steampunk? quelques reverberes victoriens et deux trois trucs retros et on a la capitale européenne du steampunk

define culture and how wallonia would be deficient of it?

The xenophobia in the country is unreal. Making too little and you're undercutting Dutch wages, not working and you're a parasite, making too much and you're blamed for inflation and buying up all the houses, etc. They do not want outsiders here and that has been made abundantly clear.

oh it reminds of belgium👀

just sayin 👀

it is also a bit sad to see the architectural monuments in the french speaking part from the 1800s that we have here that are being treated like shit.

it reminds me of a funny and sad conversation I heard between a french tourist and a wallon guy, who was pointing at a Mosan architecture facade and told the french guy "see, this is the typical Walloon architecture", and the french guy said "oh cool! is there a city around where this walloon architecture is well preserved?"

and the wallon guy said, unironically: "Yes, Maastricht."

Manufacture and engineering were always big in Walloon cities, even before the industrial revolution, during the middle age.

because germany invaded belgium twice, imposed flamenpolitik and destroyed that sacred pact (like Saxons taking revenge on Charlemagne) and now we live with the consequences of that...

the tolerable kind

no it's not silly. Belgium (unlike Germany) represents the union of roman and germanic cultures, exactly like Charlemagne. So even if Charlemagne was born in Germany (or not), he represents far more a Belgian than a German ideal.

there is a river called Aa in france, and it means the same thing than Aachen (Water)

Dude everyone knows Charles Martel and Pepin the Short (Charlemagne's granddad and dad) were born in Liège Belgium. We are not sure for Charlemagne himself. Maybe he was born in Aachen, but the borders were not as hard as today.

But the romanized branch of the Carolingians is the origin of Walloon culture in the 9th century.

i'm not saying all flemish nationalists are fucking dumb but if you're fucking dumb, the odds are higher that you are a flemish nationalist.

Of course people in both regions share their main language, which is not the case between Flemish and Walloons

Alsace-Lorraine is very similar to Flanders-Wallonia

Actually it's the same thing. One is to Germany what the other is to the Netherlands. Flanders is the dutch Alsace. Lorraine and Wallonia are very similar.

Flanders and Wallonia shared the French language at the birth of Belgium too, at administrative level.

The big difference is that France was far stronger in the dynamic with Alsace, compared to weaker Belgium, so in Flanders it backfired while in Alsace it didn't. Now Flanders dominates Belgium.

it mainly has to do with the origins.

what origins?

ethnic differences?

To each his speciality. There are many different areas that are developping especially in AI. Wallonia is already well developped in biotech for ex.

jeez, the shit we read on this board

then flemish nationalists should be in favor of it in that case

I think reduced governments would be positive. The money is lost in the belgian institutional bretzel.

being from Wallonia, I wish to turn Charleroi into the Belgian Eindhoven. I mean , it is a sore, neglected city full of unemployement, but it used to be the manufactural center of Belgium (while Antwerp was the trade center and Brussels the service center); taking advantage of the cheaper real estate, let's create a big university in the middle of Charleroi focusing on Technology (AI and energy and stuff), attract students from all over belgium and let them talk the language they want, forget about the communautarian BS.

of course i'm dreaming awake

there are also racism against wallons

yep, that's a good demonstration of the complex language dynamics

basically when i hear someone praising someone else to be well integrated, it means he or she got the local accent.

otherwise I realize i feel quite un-belgian, except that i love fries

yes I know, Flemish dutch is less a mean of communication than a tool to gatekeep their community. Learning dutch is not enough.

it's just the german conception of ethnicity which is ancestry based vs the more western conception (french, english) which is culture based

coming from an italian...

BTW, they understood me, but they refused to talk to me back in English (not everyone)

One vendor especially, whom I purchased a slice of pizza, asked something in German, I said "sorry? I don't speak german", and she repeated it louder in a pissed off way... like talking louder will make me magically understand German...